Eastern football closes with win

For Eastern Washington football in 2022 the season began with a win and ended the same way.

Scoring 28 consecutive points, Eastern erased an early second quarter 14-7 Northern Colorado lead and went on to defeat the Bears on a cold and breezy day 45-21 at Roos Field. Eastern has now won 13 consecutive games against UNC with the Bears’ only win coming in 1981 as an NCAA Division II program.

The victory provided a bit of a bright spot for the Eagles who finished 2-6 in the Big Sky Conference, 3-8 overall. This was a season where Eastern faced two Football Bowl Subdivision teams (Oregon and Florida) as well as five nationally ranked teams from the Big Sky. It was Eastern’s first season since 2006 in which they finished with a sub .500 record.

“We’re going to let this one marinate a bit – these guys have worked their tails off the entire season,” Eastern head coach Aaron Best said. “We put together our best game of 60 minutes at the end of the season.”

After taking the lead on its first drive with a 6-yard run with 12 minutes, 50 seconds remaining in the opening quarter from redshirt freshman quarterback Kekoa Visperas, Eastern surrendered a pair of touchdowns to UNC. The second was a pick-six interception return for 43 yards by Nick Ciccio with 3:45 to play in the first half.

Eastern answered with a Silas Perreiah score less than two minutes later and following a three-and-out Eagles defensive stand on the next UNC possession, Visperas found Tuna Altahir for a 7-yard TD catch with 28 seconds left in the half for a 21-14 EWU lead — one they would never lose.

Facing a fourth-and-34 yards to go at their own 29, the Bears punted on their first possession of the second half, and it took all of 61 seconds for Altahir to run 51 yards for his second score with 10:34 remaining in the third quarter putting Eastern up 28-14.

Three plays and some 90 seconds later, Tre Weed jumped in front of a Dylan McCaffrey pass and 40 yards later Eastern had a 35-14 lead at the 9:41 mark of the third with his pick-six TD. The Eagles added a fourth-quarter Visperas to Anthony Stell Jr. pass and the first career field goal — a 33 yarder — from Soren McKee to close scoring.

Visperas made the first start of his Eagle career and completed 17-of-21 passes for 235 yards and two touchdowns despite EWU’s top two receivers — Freddie Roberson and Efton Chisim III — not playing. Stell led the Eagles with four catches.

Altahir, also a redshirt freshman, had EWU’s best individual rushing total of the season with 153 yards on 23 carries.

Defensively, Eastern had season-best performances in holding UNC to 79 yards passing and 233 yards total. A trio of Eagles had nine tackles each – senior Mitchell Johnson, junior Ely Doyle and Jaren Banks.

“We didn’t necessarily peak in the mid-season at the most opportunistic time, but we peaked in our 11th game at home,” Best said.

Eastern will announce its Class of 2022 recruits at National Letter of Intent Day, Dec. 21 as the Eagles begin preparation for the 2023 season opener, in Minneapolis vs. North Dakota State Sept. 2.

Paul Delaney is a retired Free Press Publishing reporter and can be reached at [email protected].